


from silent dreams we never wake

by endlessnighttimesky



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Anal Sex, Anxiety, Artist!Gerard - Freeform, Barebacking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Posttraumatic Stress, References to Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, References to Past Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 21:02:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/816028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlessnighttimesky/pseuds/endlessnighttimesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard sees it immediately – the fear and panic in Frank’s tired eyes, the slight tremble of his tattooed hands. <em>Oh.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	from silent dreams we never wake

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, many thanks and my undying love to [Cas](http://archiveofourown.org/users/caspar_sebastian) for plot-help and just general awesomeness, I love you <3
> 
> Title from _This Is The Best Day Ever_ by MCR.
> 
> **Edit:** This work now has a Russian translation, read it [here](http://ficbook.net/readfic/3022819)!

Bright, blinding light seeps through the curtains, falling over Frank’s face and upper body, warming the naked skin. He twists and stretches, extending an arm and expecting to find a body beside him in the bed, the peaks and valleys of vertebrae to run his fingers over. Scarlet hair to tangle his hand in, milky skin to kiss and bruise.

No such luck, though. The bed beside him is empty, sheets already cold, freezing like Frank’s blood. His heart migrates to his throat, and there’s this pressure in his ribcage, pushing and pulling at his insides. Lightheaded and graceless, he stumbles out of bed, unsteady on his legs.

Somewhere, deep down inside, hidden and buried and impossible to find, sits the knowledge that he’s being unreasonable, that there’s nothing to fear. It doesn’t matter, though, because right now, it’s the memories that are at the front of his mind, reminding him of every nightmare, every scar, every hour spent in the emergency room – and none of them are easily forgotten. It’s blinding, almost, just like the light.

If anyone asks – which no one will, because Gerard is the only one who knows, and he doesn’t have to – it’s the lack of caffeine in his system that makes Frank walk into the doorframe, head thumping painfully against the white-painted wood. It hurts for a split second, but then his eyes meet Gerard’s, and Frank feels nothing but relief.

Gerard sees it immediately – the fear and panic in Frank’s tired eyes, the slight tremble of his tattooed hands. _Oh_.

He’s quiet as he rises from the couch, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray and putting his cup down on the coffee table, pushing a graphic novel out of his lap. It lands on the floor with a dull thud and the scrape of paper against paper.

He’s across the room in a matter of seconds, arms tight around Frank’s back, letting him collapse against his chest. Face buried in Gerard’s neck, Frank clutches at his t-shirt, gripping at fabric and flesh, as if he has to assure himself it’s real.

Gerard does the same, fingers digging into Frank’s back, most likely leaving marks. The pain makes Frank squirm, and anyone else would take that as a cue to stop – but this is Gerard, and he knows. So he doesn’t stop, just trails his hands down Frank’s back only to bring them up again, but under his t-shirt this time, adding his own red lines to the black ones already there.

When he’s certain the marks will last – Frank will want to see them later, and have him add to them tonight – he drops his hands from under the fabric, smoothing his palm over the skin as he goes. He moves them up to Frank’s hair, twirling a few strands between his fingers and scratching at his scalp, until Frank’s breaths come stable and calm again.

“You want some coffee?” Gerard asks quietly, nudging at Frank’s temple with his nose.

“Yeah,” Frank mumbles, leaning up on his tiptoes to press his lips to Gerard’s, sweet and chaste. He tastes like smoke and coffee and sleep, and it’s comforting like nothing else.

“Anything else?” Gerard asks as they walk into the kitchen, Frank’s fingers wrapped cautiously around Gerard’s wrist, thumb pressed against his pulse.

Frank shakes his head as Gerard lifts him up onto the counter beside the coffee machine. He wraps his legs around Gerard’s waist, arms around his neck, keeping him close.

They stay that way while the coffee brews, Gerard’s head dipped as he places soft, close-mouthed kisses to the skin on Frank’s neck, tongue occasionally darting out to leave wet marks and send shivers up Frank’s spine, through his veins and the tips of his fingers. It’s not the kind of shudder Gerard incites whenever they’re in bed, or on the couch, or pressed up against the fridge, not the one that comes accompanied by arched backs and grasping hands. It’s just reassurance, the knowledge that Gerard is still there, able to make feel Frank this way. It’s comfort, and it’s home.

“Coffee’s done,” Gerard mumbles and opens the cupboard next to Frank’s head, pulling out what he knows is Frank’s favorite cup – the one with the skeletons on the outside and the bones at the bottom spelling out _I love you_ , all hand-painted by Gerard. He single-handedly manages to pour coffee into it, and then he’s tugging Frank into the living room and to the couch, where they sit down, Gerard in one corner with his legs spread, allowing Frank to scoot back between them.

Picking up his book again, Gerard places it on Frank’s drawn-up knees and continues reading, while Frank strokes the inside of his left wrist, tracing the veins with a thumbnail. He glances at the book occasionally, admiring the artwork, but for the most part he’s focusing on Gerard, the feel of his body against his. The pressure of his chest rising and falling against his back, his breath ruffling his hair, skin rubbing against his when he turns a page. Frank can even feel his heartbeat, if he concentrates hard enough.

When he can see the letters at the bottom of his cup, Frank gets up, a little reluctantly, but he can at least pretend to be a responsible adult and not walk around in his pajamas all day. He’s not even wearing pants, and his t-shirt is stained with drool.

Being a responsible adult doesn’t exclude wearing your boyfriend’s clothes, though, at least not in Frank’s book. So when he opens the closet, shivering a little from the displacement of air, he pulls out a pair of his own sweatpants but one of Gerard’s t-shirts – the Planet of the Apes one that Gerard is keeps wearing as if he doesn’t own any other items of clothing – and the blue-and-white striped hoodie that isn’t more Gerard’s than it is Frank’s. Today, the padlock around his neck just isn’t enough.

Once in the bathroom, he opens the medicine cabinet, even though his toothbrush and toothpaste are standing in a cup on the edge of the sink. Old habits die hard, he supposes, although he’s not really sure when this stopped being suicide prevention, and started being – well, whatever it is now. Posttraumatic stress disorder. Anxiety. Maybe just fear, pure and simple. Or all of the above.

Point is, he’s still doing it, and he’s pretty sure the only way to keep him from it is to unscrew the cabinet from the wall, throw it out onto the street and light it on fire. Until then, he’ll check every shelf, read the labels on the few pill bottles they still keep, and count the content to check no large amounts are missing.

He hates himself for doing it, guilt resting heavily at the bottom of his stomach – he wants to trust Gerard, and he does, he really does, it’s just… The fear, it’s still there, and it won’t go away, no matter how long Gerard holds him, kisses his temple, forehead, lips, and tells him it’s okay, he’s fine now, he loves Frank, he’s not going anywhere, not now, not ever. He’s not leaving, not in any way.

But it doesn’t matter, because Frank still remembers. He wants to say he’s repressed the memories, that there are little gaps where everything is just black, missing, but then he’d lie. In reality, he’s got everything stored, stacked neatly in his cerebral cortex, picture-perfect and heartbreaking.

When he’s awake, it’s easier – there are distractions, like smears of paint on Gerard’s skin and birds on the telephone poles outside the kitchen window – but once in bed, eyes closed and body asleep, that’s when his mind truly awakens, reminding him of every painful moment throughout that year.

Gerard, black hair and coat dotted with snowflakes, stumbling home at 4 AM, shit-faced and giggling like a madman.

Gerard, bent over the toilet bowl, puking his guts up and popping painkillers as if they were candy, only to wash them down with a swig of Jack.

Gerard, draped over the couch, spaced out on coke and God knows what else, trying to get Frank to try a line – “Just one, Frankie, I promise you, it’s amazing, just one, for me, please.”

Fast-forward a few months and there he is again, now sprawled on the bathroom floor, track marks on his arms and a syringe in his hand, bliss showing in his every feature.

And last but not least, Gerard again, unconscious in a hospital bed – withdrawal made him violent and paranoid, so they had to sedate him – hooked up to machines, needles in his hands and legs because every other vein had collapsed, the skin above bruised and sore.

And through it all, Frank was there, holding his hair or hand, flushing chemicals down the toilet and emptying bottles in the sink, only to end up sitting curled up in an uncomfortable armchair for hours on an end, waiting for the drugs to leave Gerard’s system so they could wake him up, and he could find out if the glint in his boyfriend’s eyes was still there, or if the drugs took it with them.

It didn’t, and it’s there even today, every morning when they wake up together, usually accompanied by a smile Frank likes to trace with his fingertips or tongue, or just press his own against.

Back in the living room, Gerard is still on the couch, but he looks up when he sees Frank, smiling that smile that’s only for Frank to see, fond and loving.

“Wanna sit with me in the studio?” he asks and folds the corner of the page he’s on, before closing the book and putting it on the coffee table. He knows by now, that on these days, going somewhere, even if it’s just to another room in the apartment, is a bad idea, plain and simple. If Frank leaves, it’s best for Gerard to just stay where he is until he comes back.

“Yeah, okay,” Frank says, voice still subdued – on these days, just pronouncing words seem like too much of an effort. Thankfully, they’ve known each other for long enough for things to go smoothly without talking – usually, all it takes is a glance in the right direction or a touch to the right patch of skin, and the message gets through.

“Okay,” Gerard says softly and walks up to Frank, throwing an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. He kisses the top of his head, rubbing his nose over Frank’s scalp, taking in the scent of flowery shampoo and coffee, the lingering scent of smoke. Sighing, Gerard thinks about how he once was so close to give up on all of this – love, life, Frank. Not that those are really separate things, anymore.

“Play me something,” Gerard demands when they settle in the studio, Frank on the paint-splattered couch and Gerard on a stool in front of an easel.

Frank would complain – Gerard always makes Frank play him something when they’re both in the studio, especially if he’s working, since according to him it makes him focus better – but he appreciates the distraction, so he just grabs the guitar from where it’s leaning against the arm of the couch, placing it gently in his lap.

Sometimes, Gerard has requests – The Cure, Morrissey, Black Flag – and other times he just lets Frank decide. Looking up, Frank sees Gerard squeezing paint onto a palette, twisting a lock of hair around his finger as he does so. No requests, then.

He sings along, though, whenever he knows the songs (so almost every time), and today is no different.

“She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak,” he sings, low and under his breath, barely concentrating on the words coming out of his mouth. “I’ve been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks.”

With Gerard’s voice filling the room, Frank feels less like he wants to claw his skin off, and more like he could melt into the couch any second now. It reminds him of the phone calls, seemingly endless but always too short, from the rehab clinic in New Mexico, Gerard’s voice scratchy and tinny as he told Frank about his day, what he’d seen on his walks, what he’d painted, what group therapy was like, and after two months of late night calls and falling asleep with the receivers pressed to their ears, that he was coming home.

When Frank picked Gerard up at the airport, he held him for ages, face pressed to his neck as he cried and told Gerard how much he’d missed him.

“I missed you too, Frankie,” Gerard said, holding on even tighter until Frank felt like he was going to suffocate, but in a strangely reassuring way. “So fucking much. I’m never going to leave you again, ever.”

“I’m never gonna let you leave,” Frank said, reply muffled against Gerard’s skin, before he pulled back and kissed him, this time without tasting anything but smoke and Gerard. It was wonderful, and new, and exciting, but familiar like nothing else. It still is.

The last chord of the song fades out, and Frank starts on a new one, and then another when that one’s done – Come As You Are, Lithium, All Apologies. Some Cure probably worms itself in there, in the end – Gerard might even have requested it, but Frank doesn’t really remember. Things are still a little bit hazy, blurred around the edges, and his fingers are moving over the frets without any input from his brain.

He doesn’t realize how out of it he actually is until his fingers start to ache – which definitely is something, what with how roughened they’ve gotten over the years – and he finally drops them from the guitar, only to find Gerard next to him on the couch, leaning back against the armrest with a sketchbook in his lap.

“Hey,” Gerard says softly and scoots closer, until he’s pressed against Frank’s side.

Almost out of instinct, Frank’s hand wraps itself around Gerard’s wrist, pulse thudding against his fingertips. Pushing closer, Frank throws a leg over Gerard’s lap and straddles him, and Gerard leans in, sucking at Frank’s neck and feeling his pulse thrum against his lips. As he moves down to his collarbone, Gerard nips at the skin, leaving faint marks, a fading smear of pink and red.

As Gerard’s hand twists in his grip, Frank’s fingers seek out the scar, the tiny little patch of pink tissue on the back of his hand from when he ripped out the IV cannula just after waking up in the hospital. He freaked out, kicking and snapping at the nurses before one of them managed to get close enough to push a needle in him, pumping him full of sedatives until he passed out.

Frank still has nightmares about it.

“C’mon,” Gerard whispers and pushes his hands in under Frank’s thighs. Getting the hint, Frank tightens his arms around Gerard’s neck and wraps his legs around his waist as Gerard stands up, carrying Frank out of the studio, down the corridor and into the bedroom, where he lays him down gently on the bed and starts undressing him.

Once the floor around the bed is littered with clothing, Gerard starts kissing Frank, first on the lips, then moving down to his neck and chest, eventually closing his mouth over one of Frank’s nipples. Frank arches his back slightly, pushing into the touch, and lets out a barely-there moan, soft and low. Gerard rubs his hands up and down Frank’s sides, trailing his fingertips over the ridges of his ribs as he licks and bites at Frank’s nipple. Frank continues making noises, tiny and almost inaudible, but Gerard has done this enough to catch them.

Moving down to Frank’s stomach, Gerard starts using his teeth for real, leaving bite-marks on the few patches of skin not covered in ink. His mouth is just a few inches away from Frank’s cock now, and from the increasingly whiny noises Frank’s making, he’s just as aware of it as Gerard is.

“Gee,” Frank breathes, “please.”

“Tell me what you want, Frankie,” Gerard says, and if he had the energy, Frank would lean forward and punch him, because it’s not like he doesn’t already know.

“Want you,” Frank says, and it’s all he comes up with – Gerard, he wants Gerard.

“How?” Gerard asks and crawls up over Frank again, pressing kisses to his neck and jaw. “Tell me, Frankie.”

“Like this,” Frank says, bucking up, grinding against the naked skin of Gerard’s hip. “Wanna see you.”

“Okay,” Gerard says, voice soft. “I’m gonna get some stuff from the nightstand, ‘kay?”

Frank whines a little and presses a last kiss to Gerard’s mouth before he lets him pull away. He’s not gone for long, though, and when he comes back it’s with his fingers pressing behind Frank’s balls, wet and slick.

Almost instinctively, Frank’s pulls his legs back, spreading them and giving Gerard access, and soon two fingers are sliding into him, crooking just right and making Frank moan.

“So beautiful,” Gerard says, making Frank preen despite himself and push down onto Gerard’s fingers.

It’s not long before Gerard is pushing in with a third finger, sensing Frank’s impatience. He curls and scissors them, and then Frank’s whining again.

“Please, ‘m ready, just – please, Gee, I need – “

“Yeah, okay, just – “ Gerard curls his fingers one last time, making Frank moan as they press against his prostate, and then he’s pulling out and Frank feels empty for a moment, before Gerard lines up and pushes in, slow but firm. The sudden fullness makes Frank moan, and Gerard swears that no matter how many times they do this, the sound will never fail to make him shudder. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Frank echoes and drags his nails down Gerard’s back, leaving long, red lines, then little crescent-shaped marks when he reaches his hips, digging his fingertips into the flesh.

Bringing his hands back up to Gerard’s face again, Frank curls his fingers around his jaw and pulls him close, licking into his mouth and biting his lips as he wraps his legs around Gerard’s waist, taking him deeper and keeping him there. Gerard moans into his mouth and Frank swallows the noises, but then it’s suddenly the other way around when Gerard finds Frank’s prostate and makes him cry out, muffled against Gerard’s mouth.

“There?” Gerard asks breathlessly, and Frank can’t even collect himself enough to say yes, so he just nods and moans again as Gerard keeps hitting his spot, over and over again.

“So fucking good, Frankie, fucking love you, love you so much,” Gerard says, and Frank just barely manages to say, “You, too,” before his voice is lost under the sound of Gerard crying out and cursing as he comes.

Frank barely has time to react before Gerard is pulling out and sliding down, taking Frank’s cock in his mouth as he shoves three fingers inside him, getting them wet with his own come and drawing the most amazing noises from Frank’s lips.

Hands clenching in the sheets, Frank tries to hold off for as long as he can, but then Gerard is pulling off and going down, lower and lower until he’s tonguing at Frank’s hole where it’s stretched around Gerard’s fingers, and his orgasm is pushing through him, spreading from all the places where Gerard is touching him until his toes are curling and knuckles whitening.

The sheets are a lost cause, but while Frank basks in the afterglow, Gerard pads away to the bathroom to find a washcloth. When he comes back after cleaning himself up, Frank is on his side on the bed, curled around one of Gerard’s pillows. He makes a soft noise when Gerard settles behind him, so he’s still awake, but knowing Frank, it won’t last long, especially not on a day like this.

“I’m gonna clean you up a little, okay?”

Frank hums vaguely, just a minute or two from falling asleep, and lets Gerard clean him up. When he’s done, he tugs sleepily at Gerard’s hands until he wraps his arms around Frank, tight and safe. Frank makes a happy, satisfied noise and pushes back into the curve of Gerard’s body behind him until he’s feeling nothing but his skin, warm and just slightly damp.

“I love you,” Gerard whispers into the back of Frank’s neck.

Too tired to form words, all Frank manages is a squeeze of Gerard’s hand to show he’s heard, but for now, Gerard doesn’t need more than that. He has Frank, and as always, that’s more than enough.


End file.
